“If a story starts with a maiden, let’s not assume that she has to get locked in a tower.”

I haven’t been blogging about writing much lately, meanwhile. I am writing a lot. I’ve started something new while I wait to hear about a whole bunch of irons which may or may not be in the fire. It’s exciting me a lot. I’m also writing a bunch of short fic and trying to get myself Out There. The tiny time windows I have to write in are starting to squeeze tighter and tighter, but there’s nothing I can do about that except breathe deep and carry on. I’m nearly at 50K total fiction words for the year, which would be more exciting if the year wasn’t nearly half over.

The Clarion Write-a-thon just swung past my radar again. I had completely forgotten about it and yet, checking back over my blog, it’s the thing that made the difference in building writing momentum for me last year, and helped me get to the halfway point of my Nancy Napoleon novel. 37,000 words in six weeks, not shabby at all.

So I’m signing up again. I might try to be a bit more pro-active about fundraising rather than just piggybacking on the Write-a-thon for my own ends like I did last year – I was a bit embarrassed to spruik for sponsorship, but hey, it’s a good cause! I thoroughly recommend people joining in if they want to give their writing a kick in the pants – the nice thing about it is you can set whatever goals you like, which makes it a bit more convivial and inclusive than the Nano tradition. (not that I’m knocking Nano, if it works, it works!)

If you want to encourage me, or any of the other Write-a-thon participants (already some quite famous names signed up, though of course those of less famous names may need the encouragement even more) then do please donate to the fundraiser – Clarion is one of those marvellous institutions that genuinely enriches the SF community.

Stephanie Smith, Kim Westwood & TansyRR

Instead, we mostly took part in that classic social medium of talking each other’s ears off before, during and after the awards ceremony, and then again over the longest breakfast in the world with many friends and colleagues the next morning. Bliss!

Some good updates I have seen are from Zena (who I met while lurking outside the theatre waiting to be let in!) and from Sean the Blogonaut, who proved that the best event reporting can come from someone who wasn’t even there.

Apologies for lack of tweetage and podcasting! It’s not that I forgot you all, I was just giddy with child-freedom and the lack of oxygen to my feet after walking in my heels to the theatre…

While I gracefully lost to three very talented women (Sue Isle, Pamela Freeman and Lisa Hannett, hard to argue with that!) in my categories, I was delighted at so many of the wins (including several works/authors I have championed over the last year) that it felt like a very successful night. No one will be surprised at how delighted I was to see The Courier’s New Bicycle honoured. And of course there was the one that hadn’t been mentioned on the shortlist at all…

Galactic Suburbia won the Peter McNamara Convenor’s Award! We are very grateful and happy about that, it was lovely to be able to acknowledge our little podcast’s success on a literal stage in front of our peers. Plus we won actual cash money thanks to the CAL copyright fund, one of the sponsors. We haven’t decided yet what to do with the money once we’ve covered a year or two’s podcast hosting costs (WISCON FUND!) but look forward to wrangling about that decision, possibly even on air.

In the meantime, congratulations to all the other winners, and three cheers for Spec Faction who worked tirelessly to put on another great night for the Australian spec fic community. I am very grateful for their efforts!

The winners:

CHILDREN’S FICTION (told primarily through words): City of Lies by Lian Tanner (Allen & Unwin)

CHILDREN’S FICTION (told primarily through pictures): Sounds Spooky by Christopher Cheng (author) and Sarah Davis (illustrator) (Random House Australia)

YOUNG ADULT short story: Nation of the Night by Sue Isle (Nightsiders, Twelfth Planet Press)

YOUNG ADULT novel: Only Ever Always by Penni Russon (Allen & Unwin)

ILLUSTRATED BOOK / GRAPHIC NOVEL: JOINT WINNERS – Hidden by Mirranda Burton (author & illustrator) (Black Pepper) AND The Deep: Here be Dragons by Tom Taylor (author) and James Brouwer (illustrator) (Gestault Publishing)

COLLECTION: Bluegrass Symphony by Lisa Hannett (Ticonderoga Publications)

ANTHOLOGY: Ghosts by Gaslight edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers (HarperVoyager)

HORROR short story: JOINT WINNERS – The Past is a Bridge Best Left Burnt by Paul Haines (The Last Days of Kali Yuga, Brimstone Press) AND The Short Go: a Future in Eight Seconds by Lisa L. Hannett (Bluegrass Symphony, Ticonderoga Publications)

HORROR novel: TWO HONORABLE MENTIONS AWARDED TO: The Broken Ones by Stephen M. Irwin (Hachette) AND The Business of Death by Trent Jamieson (Hachette)

FANTASY short story: Fruit of the Pipal Tree by Thoraiya Dyer (After the Rain, FableCroft Publishing)

FANTASY novel: Ember and Ash by Pamela Freeman (Hachette)

SCIENCE FICTION short story: Rains of la Strange by Robert N Stephenson (Anywhere but Earth, Couer de Lion)

SCIENCE FICTION novel: The Courier’s New Bicycle by Kim Westwood (HarperVoyager)

The Peter McNamara Convenor’s Awards went to Galactic Suburbia.

The Kris Hembury Encouragement Award went to Emily Craven.

The gift was a box with a poem and some marvellous little treasures inside, but that’s not the bit that had me tearing up and hugging her to bits.

It was what was drawn (and written) on the box. My girl, she has such a thoughtful attention to detail.

This one slayed me – I had seen hints of the Normal Girl/Other Girls phenomenon on Tumblr, but it made no sense to me out of context. Enter the Mary Sue to explain it to me – hooray! I love the way that this story documents the way that one person’s attempt to parody the representation of women was misunderstood, then reclaimed, and had a massive fandom build around it, all in about 48 hours. Inspector Spacetime, eat your heart out.

A fascinating, brain-exploding essay on the topic of Women and Ambition which is of particular interest to me because I seem to be surrounded these days by women (including myself) who often feel the need to apologise or feel embarrassed about their successes.

I learned a lot in this essay about Muslim women, and how their lives revolve so much about other women that fiction involving them simply has to pass the Bechdel Test – and if it doesn’t, there’s a problem. I think this is one that all fantasy writers should consider carefully because it’s relevant to the depiction of all female characters in fantasy fiction. It blows the whole stupid ‘it’s historically authentic to make them suffer because women in medieval times couldn’t do anything interesting’ argument out of the water. Even if you have built a fantasy that revolves around ingrained sexist or patriarchal traditions, the women will still be somewhere together, talking to each other.

Over at the Aqueduct Press blog, L. Timmel Duchamp picked up on Kirstyn’s post about learning to feel unsafe as a girl, discussing her own experience and perspective.

N.K. Jemisin talks about why you should never ever apologise for reading an author’s books through the library.

A thoughtful post about the Bechdel Test and how it relates to her own work by Sherwood Smith.

THE FOLLOWING VID SPOILS ALL THE THINGS OF THE AVENGERS MOVIE (well all the cool things involving Black Widow) WHICH IS MOST OF THE THINGS (which is why my daughter is getting Black Widow Lego for Christmas)

News

Drink Tank loves us! Download their Hugo shortlist commentary here.

Mondy loves us too! He makes us go awww.

James Tiptree Jr finally in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and about time too.

Talking to Alistair Reynolds: he defends the idea that science fiction has a limited number of plots

Locus Award Finalists

Clarke Award

Women in (Japanese) Comics: Cheryl Morgan reports; Anime News Network

Some kickstarter stuff:
Feminist Historical Anthology from Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

Scalzi on Amanda Palmer and how she worked hard for 10 years to get her “overnight success”

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Alisa: We Wuz Pushed by Brit Mandelo
Alex: Castles Made of Sand, Gwyneth Jones; Captain America; The Avengers; Confusion of Princes, Garth Nix
Tansy: A Confusion of Princes, Garth Nix; The Avengers; Earth 2 & World’s Finest; Ishtar

Tansy’s Note: “I do not mourn the boob window” is a classic line that should be long remembered and oft repeated – but Cheryl Morgan said it first! I only steal from the best…

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

So how did they stack up?

I did enjoy World’s Finest greatly – the concept of the comic is fantastic, the pacing and dialogue are excellent, and there’s nothing in there yet that makes my inner feminist want to set fire to things. As with many fans of Power Girl and Huntress, I found the reading experience a bit unsettling, because of having to get used to these different versions of the characters, who are now all that we get. But this isn’t the first time I’ve had to do that.

My first Huntress was Helena Wayne, the pre-Crisis daughter of Batman and Catwoman, and I found it very hard to adapt to the cranky mafia princess Helena Bertinelli Huntress, though I came to love her very much. And while my first Power Girl was the cheerful-while-punching-things pre-Crisis version too, the first version of her I grew deeply attached to was the bitchy short-haired canary-costumed soda addict of the early 90′s in Justice League Europe, and giving her up to embrace the gorgeous, funny, actually-makes-sense Conner/Palmiotti/Gray version required a leap of reality all in itself.

I like these characters almost always, however they are written and drawn. I even loved Power Girl when she was being drawn like an elderly bulldog with a blonde wig and hunchbacked cape in the very early JLE, so… I’m not going anywhere.

The new Huntress revamp has been the most controversial of the two, because Helena Bertinelli has a huge fan following, especially among women, and DC has chosen to discard her in favour of bringing back Helena Wayne. While the original Helena Wayne Huntress was all kinds of awesome, and I will defend her mightily, I can see why Helena Bertinelli has won so many hearts.

She’s cranky and uncompromising, she is ruthless and unafraid to be angry. She stands up to Batman and has been known on occasion to call him on his bullshit. She was one of the highlights of Gail Simone’s beloved epic run on Birds of Prey. She has a massive, complex backstory, and she’s been around for more than 20 years, so it’s unsurprising that many Helena fans are responding with a sense of betrayal, similar to what happened when the decision was made last year to get rid of Barbara Gordon’s Oracle identity and put her back to being the young Batgirl.

It really doesn’t help that the opening pages of World’s Finest refer to Helena Bertinelli as a dead woman whose identity Helena Wayne has used and is now discarding. Further anger/resentment came because the gorgeous Huntress miniseries last year implied from the start that we were reading the Helena Bertinelli we knew, only for it to be revealed at the end that it was Helena Wayne all along.

See, Kara no longer has a boob window! What an awesome feminist choice on behalf of the artist...

But let’s look at the Huntress we do get for a minute, because she’s all kinds of awesome. For a start, they are continuing the new costume revealed in the mini-series, and I am a touch sad for the comics world that I am this excited a character is still not showing her midriff, but come on! Let’s have a high five for the fully dressed woman in Kevlar, holding a crossbow!

The new backstory has also changed – back in the day, Helena Wayne discovered her mother’s past when Selina Wayne was blackmailed into being Catwoman again, and killed in the process. Helena, already an adult was inspired to become a superhero partly because of the sadness and strength of her widowed father (who had long since retired as Batman) but mostly because of wanting to avenge her mother. She worked as a lawyer by day, and a superhero by night, working to uphold justice in both areas of her life.

More of this please, Mr Maguire

Power Girl has had less controversy, because her actual backstory and character haven’t changed noticeably at all. I was glad to see that the often-forgotten Karen Starr identity is being used cleverly here, and is a part of Power Girl’s personality. She seems very similar to the Gray/Palmiotti version of the character in personality, and I like very much that we see her ambition, business sense and corporate tendencies are all still there, as well as being used to support the main drive of the World’s Finest story – that is, the quest for them to get home.

I don't miss the boob window, but oh I DO miss the awesome Amanda Conner Peege faces

Unfortunately, the costume they have provided for her is ugly as 80′s sin, and there’s some quite odd looking artwork (by George Perez) going on in the book which I think suggests that there is not enough confidence in her character’s ability to be memorable without flashing her boobs through a hole. It’s a bit sad to me that she looks most like the Kara I know in the scenes where she’s half-naked, and I hope that the current creators will remember that apart from making cheesecake seem funny and awesome, the other thing that Amanda Conner did in her brilliant run as Power Girl’s artist was to PUT A FREAKING JUMPER ON HER.

I have hopes it will improve. When it comes down to it, this is a fun action comic about two women who are friends and share an important quest. I think the concept is great and I did enjoy the writing between Kara and Helena, even if they aren’t quite any of the Karas and Helenas I remember. I’m sticking with it.

And I really didn’t mean to write so much about that comic and almost nothing on the other! Earth 2 is mostly an extended flashback sequence, but the art by Nicola Scott is gorgeous, and more than makes up for that. Her Earth 2 Wonder Woman is one of the most fantastic Amazon designs I’ve seen, and I liked the way she drew Helena and Kara’s Earth 2 identities – I really wish she was drawing their book!

What interests me most about this comic is the last few pages though, when I finally started getting the hang of the concept of it. They seem to be rebooting the Justice Society characters – so far Alan Scott and Jay Garrick, but I hope for more – as contemporary young superheroes, as if they were starting from scratch now. This is quite exciting, and the sort of thing I really wanted to see more of in the New 52. I think part of the reason I’m not as angry as others about the reboot of Power Girl and Huntress is that their title seems to fit more with what we were told the New 52 would be – a grand revisioning of the universe, as opposed to an occasional revisioning of the universe, which fits badly and awkwardly in with all those Batman titles that get to stay exactly the same as they were because everyone loves Batman, right?

More and more I feel that it would have been better for them to throw EVERYTHING away and start from scratch, instead of trying to have their cake and eat it too. Because mostly, the parts that seem to have been sacrificed are the parts that had less mainstream fanbases, which is why so many female readers are punching walls and STILL asking where Stephanie and Cassandra Cain are. Also, so many of the new 52 titles seem to have changed by going backwards instead of forwards – do we really need to see the Barry Allen story again? And what happens to the characters who are part of that big, messy ‘not the original but not the absolute latest version’ puddle of DC history?

So yes, if we are going to have a reboot – and there it is staring at us from September last year – then the bigger the better. As long as we’re not chucking female and minority characters out with the bathwater. I think using Earth 2 as an excuse to play with beloved old characters, and give them a new lease on life Battlestar Galactica style, is quite fun, and apparently we’re getting a Nicola Scott Hawkgirl, which is BASICALLY ALL I NEEDED TO KNOW. This book and any associated titles might be the closest thing we get to a DC equivalent of Marvel’s Ultimate universe, and I’m all for that.

I’m still reading Batgirl, Batwoman and Wonder Woman from the New 52, I enjoyed the Ray and Huntress minis, and I have not OFFICIALLY dropped other titles which I was quite enjoying but haven’t been finding time to read on my iPad, like JLI, Superboy and Teen Titans. But these two comics, World’s Finest and Earth 2, while they are flawed and problematic in places, are still the most exciting titles I’ve come across yet, since the universe changed (again). And I’m really, really glad that one of the most iconic female friendships of the DCU is where it should be, front and centre in a regular title. So I’m keeping them.

First, I turned up at Lynne M Thomas’ Confessions of a Curator blog. Lynne is a big comics reader like I am and so I wrote her a piece based on some ideas that have been churning around in my head lately, as to whether I write epic fantasy, and whether you can have epic fantasy that doesn’t travel anywhere… and I decided that Batman and the near-destruction of Gotham City has a lot to teach epic fantasy about how to do exactly this:

“Everything happens in cities. Some of the best sieges, invasions, tragic love stories and disasters have occurred in urban environments, going right back to the Trojan War. The only reason that fantasy writers generally get hung up about all that mountain trekking is because of being imprinted with Tolkien at an early age. And I’m not saying that wading through all the bracken with your questing party of dwarves is an invalid approach…

But CITIES. Where you can have your crazy magical invasions, your prophets of doom, your dark lords and battles and deadly, world-coming-to-an-end high stakes, and still be able to order dumplings at 2 in the morning.”

Then, over at Karen Healey’s place, she asked me to write about Classics Nerdery in honour of the heroine of her novel Guardian of the Dead, and funnily enough that was something I was perfectly capable of rolling out!

I also bounced with merriment at Karen’s intro to the piece, because I love pretty much everything about her blogging voice.

“We all have favourite historical characters, right? You hear about them in some book, or see a great TV show or movie and start getting interested in the real person, and somehow they take hold of your brain, and you start shipping them with other historical characters, and maybe there’s fanfic, and you have Opinions about, for instance, that person who killed them, or divorced them, or whatever.”

NOT an official part of this blog tour, I also turned up at Cheryl Morgan’s blog this week, finally answering a question she asked me to write about some time ago, on the topic of Is Australian Fantasy Dominated By Women?. It has pie charts (courtesy of the awesome Tsana) and everything – I couldn’t organise a pie chart in a pie factory! I hesitated over how to write this one because I know some people are quite sensitive over the issue, and because I don’t think it’s a good idea to fuel any arguments along the lines of ‘well sexism is over then, so make me a sandwich.’ But stats are fascinating, always. And people will make of it what they will.

“The truth is that as long as Australia has had an active professional science fiction and fantasy publishing industry, female authors and readers have been a massive part of its success. While Australia has also had successful male authors in science fiction and in fantasy, we have never lacked for female role models; living proof that a) fantasy by women can sell in high numbers and b) fantasy doesn’t necessarily become less epic because of a female byline.”

If you live in the Sydney area and you love SF/Fantasy, come along to the Aurealis Awards this Saturday! I’m excited to be going again, rocking my Success Frock, and hanging out with friends, meeting new people in the industry, and so on. The M.C. is Kate Forsyth, it’s in a gorgeous little theatre, and you can still buy tickets!

Aurealis Awards, Sat 12 May at the Independent Theatre, North Sydney. Doors open 7.30pm.

The flappers and indeed the swords are not in any way the most important part of my story. But in my head, that image sums up exactly what the books mean to me. The 1920’s elements in the world building are jammed up against Victoriana, Edwardiana, Roman festivals, and there’s even a cameo appearance of steampunk in the final volume. There are shape-changers and court politics, there is the sky opening up and raining death upon cities below, or even swallowing cities whole. There is love and death and smut and horror and hatred and fear and blood and quite a lot of people arguing in public instead of (or um as well as) ripping each other’s clothes off.

But the cover image I most longed for to represent the books as a whole was one of my flappers with a sword. I angled for this with every volume, and was very excited to finally get one with Book Three, Reign of Beasts. But while I love my covers, none of them quite have the ‘1920’s’ vibe that I crave. So when I decided to commission a piece of artwork from Kathleen Jennings (the queen of nostalgic fashion plates) to illustrate this blog tour, and promote the availability of the Creature Court books outside (HOORAY!) Australia, this was the first and only image that came to mind.

Kathleen was slightly evil and sketched me a whole bunch of gorgeous, glorious and quite different flappers with swords, only one of which I could take for this particular project, but which she is holding in reserve for me (EVIL, I TELL YOU) should they be necessary at a later date. Of course they will be. Flappers are essential!

Myself, this particular flapper and her sword will be visiting a few different blogs this week, to talk about all manner of topics including fantasy fiction, history, Batman and frocks. I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride! I’ll put up link updates every few days, and do one big fancy round up at the end.

If you want to get into the spirit of promoting the Creature Court with me this week (and none of you should feel in anyway obliged – just reading my blog is more than enough support, and I appreciate it!) then the best way would be to put up a review of one of my books on Amazon/the Kindle store. Just a few extra reviews can make all the difference.

The Doctor – David Tennant
Martha Jones – Freema Agyeman
Joan Redfern – Jessica Hynes

Script by Paul Cornell
Director: Charles Palmer

TEHANI:
Before we wriggle on to some of the best eps yet, a quick look at those we’ve skipped…

“Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks” – over the top, quite offensively horrible in some places, and really not at all engaging. Oh, and another “last Daleks eva” storyline, with the Cult of Skaro back again. I pretty much skimmed this on the rewatch and didn’t feel I’d missed anything at all. In fact, I wish I hadn’t bothered at all and never reminded myself of the horrible pig-men. And I REALLY wish this hadn’t been dragged out to two episodes – perhaps in one it would have been a bit better. I think I know what it was aiming to say, but for me, it was definitely a low of New Who.

DAVID:
Wow, you really didn’t like it! I actually quite enjoyed it, and my inner romantic was very happy that Laszlo and Tallulah ended up together at the end. My only real issue, and I am afraid that it really did bug me, was the way that the human hybrid version of Dalek Sec talked, it was atrocious.

TANSY:
I think this is one of my long-term least favourite, and nothing much has changed! The concept of the Daleks in 1930s New York is brilliant, and I liked the idea that they are the only reason the Empire State Building got built, but there isn’t much for me to love here.

TEHANI:
“The Lazarus Experiment” – oh, much better than the last two, although I found the actor playing the scientist (Mark Gatiss) odd. Almost like he didn’t know what to do with the role and over-hammed it. Maybe not quite the right person for the part there. It was good to see some more of Martha’s family, with some heavy foreshadowing for later episodes sneaking in!

DAVID:
I thought this was a pretty strong episode, with all the right ingredients – a mad scientist, scientific hubris, a monster, lots of near death moments. It was good to see more of the dynamics of Martha’s family, though the Doctor seems to rub mothers up the wrong way, doesn’t he? But, did anyone else find it weird how Tish went from being completely creeped out by Lazarus to flirtatious? Talk about bad judgment when it comes to men!

Good to see them carrying on the sci fi tradition of names that are conveniently a summation of a character’s traits or personality.

TANSY:
I didn’t like this one much either I’m afraid – this is the DVD disc I tend to skip! I am glad we went back to Martha’s family, of which Tish is certainly the most likeable despite her appalling judgement, and I appreciate the strong contrast to Rose’s family. But the only bit I really like in this episode is the very beginning, where the Doctor fulfils his promise to bring Martha home, and she’s so put out about it.

TEHANI:
“42” – just me who wanted this to be cosmic slapstick ala Douglas Adams? Okaaaay then… Actually I quite liked this one – lots of action and tension. And of course, MORE FORESHADOWING!

DAVID:
Yes, 42 has a lot of baggage in sci fi! I really enjoyed this one, it was go go go all the way through. Sort of a slicker, leaner version of Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit – without the Devil!

TANSY:
A good science fiction action story, in a show where we never get enough actual spacey stuff – and yet oddly unmemorable compared to the weirder and more experimental episodes of this season. Speaking of which…

TEHANI:
Onto the main (double) event!

HUMAN NATURE/THE FAMILY OF BLOOD

DAVID:
Well, it’s hard to think of a better episode in New Who so far. Big call, but there are only a few episodes I would put at the same level as this two parter. All I can say is “Blink” better be good!

TEHANI:
It’s apples and oranges!

DAVID:
The central idea was brilliant, and it gave us a chance to see a side of the Doctor we don’t often get to. Take away the burden of saving the Universe every other day and the trauma of the loss of his people and what do we get? A Doctor who is, dare I say, happy or at least content. David Tennant can take a lot of credit for this, with something we don’t normally associate with him, a very understated performance. I have often wondered how much of Ten is simply Tennant being Tennant, whether the manic energy and mannerisms are just him, but in this one he shows once again what a great actor he is. He is surrounded by other strong performances as well, but I am sure we will get to them.

TEHANI:
Agree completely – I think that it’s great we got to see him exhibit range here. John Smith and the Doctor are such different creatures, and you totally believe that.

DAVID:
But, it also helps that he is given such a strong script. It’s amazing how a character who is essentially just a construct is made to matter to us, that we care, that his motivations are convincing and that John Smith isn’t just the Doctor playing a role. It reminds me of Total Recall in a way, actually (the Arnie movie). John Smith is so real that he leaves a hole and people grieving for him. Thinking about it, it is actually a pretty terrible thing the Doctor does here!

TEHANI:
But possibly not as terrible because it’s an unexpected and genuinely unintentional thing?

TANSY:
Unexpected, yes, but unintentional, no – he has the option to go back to being John Smith and doesn’t take it.

It is fascinating to see Tennant playing a Doctor who doesn’t know he is the Doctor and thus … is basically not the Doctor any more. I wrote an essay on this very story recently for Doctor Her, because the issue of the Doctor’s relationship with domesticity (mostly: running away from it) fascinates me, and this story is a perfect example of that. As soon as the Doctor stops running, he’s not the Doctor any more.

John Smith is very human, but not necessarily nicer or better than the Doctor (or vice versa). I liked the little touches that showed he was very much of his time – agreeing to an older boy taking a younger boy away to be beaten, for example, something the Doctor would never let happen on his watch. But he has greater kindnesses and understanding as well.

The Doctor does not … come off overly well in this one! He’s so very starkly realised when he takes over the body again, and dooms John Smith.

DAVID:
The Family were wonderful villains, in fact I am going to commit here and say that I think they are the best villains that have been created for New Who. They could have been another Slitheen, with an over the top performance that seems played for laughs, but instead we get something truly unsettling. The way that they took on some of the characteristics of their “hosts” added another dimension to them, there is always something horrifying about the familiar taken and made alien. The scene with Son of Mine and the Headmaster of the school is as good as gets.

TEHANI:
And I like that some of those characters, particularly Mother of Mine (the maid), get to show range in their acting too – Son of Mine is so creepily over the top that it works marvellously!

TANSY:
I think it’s good that we start in the middle of the story for once, and miss the messing around part of actually knowing how the battle between the Doctor and the Family got started – it doesn’t matter, of course! The important thing is that the Doctor and Martha are running away.

I agree the Family are gorgeously, horribly realised – the idea of a mayfly style villain with a short time frame to conquer the world is a very good one, and adds to the sense of dread and a constant countdown. And the actors portraying each of them are very fine indeed. Son of Mine is a spectacular performance but I particularly love Martha realising her friend is possessed while taking tea and checking out her alienness by saying the wrong thing casually. The little girl joins a pantheon of evil little girls in Doctor Who’s history, one of the best.

DAVID:
I know this will shock you all, but I do think there some things New Who has done better than Classic Who, and a big one is that it hasn’t shied away from tackling issues like gender, sexuality and race. It was fascinating watching not just the treatment of Martha, but just the unconscious attitudes of the society she found herself in. Like watching Mad Men, it’s always both confronting and interesting seeing things that were once considered acceptable or normal and reflecting on how things have changed – or we would like to think so, anyway. Makes you wonder what things people will be watching on TV (or Google Glasses or direct neural feed) in fifty years and saying, “Wow, how could those people in 2012 do/say/think that?!”.

Again, the writer has to be commended here, especially in not falling into the trap we see so often, of making the “good characters” unrealistically enlightened for their time and somehow free of the prejudices of everyone else around them. The characters are very much of their time, and that adds to their verisimilitude. In fact, Cornell does a great job throughout of not giving us either a rose tinted or a unfairly condemnatory viewpoint. We see both the best, and the worst, of the England just before WWI.

TANSY:
Yes! I was thinking about this recently, how the new Upstairs Downstairs actually does this better than Downton Abbey, in which the ‘nice’ posh people are unreasonably kind and friendly to their servants.

I like that John and Joan, our most sympathetic supporting characters in this story, still display period appropriate casual racism and assumptions, while meaning terribly well. Joan’s flustered response to Martha declaring she is training to be a Doctor tells us so much about this particular time and place, and the options for women.

The story had a lot to say about traditional ideas of masculinity, too, and I thought showed the uncomfortable power dynamics of an upper crust boys school with quite a deft hand.

After the scene in which the pompous boys mock Martha for the colour of her skin, there’s that beautiful quiet line of hers in response to the other maid’s assertion that these boys will end up ruling the world. “1913 – they might not.” There’s a world of knowledge and sadness in those words, and we see that Martha, who has actually only been travelling with the Doctor a short time, is starting to see the world the way he does. She knows what is coming for those boys, and it means she can shrug off their casual cruelty, not letting it touch her.

DAVID:
Freema Agyeman is exceptional throughout this, I thought. You can almost feel her simmering anger as the put upon maid, having to bite her tongue not only at the treatment she receives from her superiors but at the attitudes expressed by the other servants. She has a lot of great lines and moments, from the one Tansy mentioned to when the man on the door makes the mistake of trying to keep her out. But the bit that got to me the most is where we see the true depth of her devotion to the Doctor. Not only has she endured everything that we have seen through the episode, we see what she is willing to sacrifice to get his identity back.

TANSY:
The scene in the pub was a nice moment too – the maids can’t go into the pub to drink, not (just) because of their class or Martha’s colour but because they were women. I remember my Mum talking about how even in the 60’s in Australia, a woman didn’t go into a pub on her own! It’s these little details that make a historical really work. And while I agree heartily with you, David, that New Who has made huge inroads in bringing gender, sexuality and racial issues into the show, there’s another element that I think they don’t get enough credit for – they brought the historical back and then some! Sure, Doctor Who has had a lot of historical-set stories over the years, but there has been a really solid ‘history agenda’ with New Who, with several quality period pieces (with aliens) every season. The best ones really use the setting to say something important, and while a version of this story could have been told in other eras, the choice for this particular time and the social details used to realise that time make the story especially rich.

TEHANI:
Agree with everything you both said here – these elements are a big part of what make these two episodes so very good. The integration of the historical aspects with the story being told is smooth and clever, and works exceptionally well.

DAVID:

My understanding is that originally Doctor Who was going to have much more of a historical focus, but that the space themed episodes proved more popular. I could be wrong, of course!

TANSY:
Very much so, the first few years pretty much alternated between SF and ‘monster’ shows and historicals. The show was intended to be educational for children and the creator, Sydney Newman (a relevant name to understand one of the in jokes of this episode!) was dead set against ‘bug eyed monsters.’ He hated the Daleks. But of course they were the reason the show succeeded so highly.

Historicals were phased out in the late 60’s and with only I think one exception, when they turned up again they always had science fictional elements. Which of course the New Who historicals also have – but in the old days you could have several years go by without a story set in Earth’s past, so I love that we get several per season in the new show.

DAVID:
Yes, they really have done a great job with the historical episodes. I can’t think of too many Classic Who ones that have done it better, most of the ones I would list as favourites are space/alien stories. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that they have tried for more historical accuracy (minus the aliens, of course!), some of the Classic Who ones did play pretty fast and loose!

TANSY:
Heh well history was much younger in those days…

I love many, many of the Classic historicals, actually, with or without aliens. Stories like The Aztecs, or the Highlanders, and later historicals-with-aliens like Masque of Mandragora or Curse of Fenric. Sadly most of the best historical Doctor Whos are among the lost stories and we can only listen to them. But I suspect that our expectations of what a historical story does have dated quite drastically over the years, maybe more than science fiction (which is a big maybe considering the changing special effects) – you only have to look at the 60’s adaptation of The Forsyte Saga in comparison to the one made 40 years later to see how much TV as a whole has changed. And the writers know they have a more nitpicky audience with access to Wikipedia. But there are actually quite a few clangers in modern historical episodes too! I believe small wars were started over The Shakespeare Code…

TEHANI:
The romance between John Smith and Joan Redfern (Jessica Stevenson / Hynes – did you know she co-wrote and starred in SPACED?) is sweet, sad and so believable. The actress is utterly awesome (and I particularly liked the way she appeared to be sans makeup throughout the episodes – possibly there’s a lot of stage makeup goes into that very natural look, but it seemed realistic to me!). And of the many tear-jerker scenes in this duology, the “flash forward” of what John Smith’s life could have been is heartbreaking.

TANSY:
I adore SPACED! Can’t get used to her new name, but I think she’s an amazing actress who I don’t see on my screens nearly enough. I am very happy she was given such an iconic role in the show, and she committed so thoroughly to being ‘dowdy’ for the role but was nevertheless utterly gorgeous.

I like the flash forward except (and this is a HUGE except) that they basically used that as the ‘next episode’ preview, which is a) a colossal cheat, suggesting that this is what the second episode will be all about John and Joan getting a lifetime together, and b) spoils the moment when it does appear, because we’ve seen it already. There have been a few ‘next episode’ clangers in Doctor Who, and they learned from many of their mistakes, such as showing the preview seconds after the cliffhanger of a two parter instead of after the credits, thereby taking away all tension, but this is one of the worst I can remember.

DAVID:
Joan Redfern is amazing in this. How powerful is the moment when she rejects the Doctor’s offer to become a companion? She portrays so much strength and dignity in the midst of her grief. I have said it before, and I am sure I will say it again, we are constantly seeing brilliant performances from the supporting cast and it is a big part of what has made New Who what it is.

I think I must have got something in my eye during that flash forward sequence…

TANSY:
I think one of the things that most clearly demonstrates the success of the new version of the show is absolutely the guest cast. Sure, there are always people who will agree to be in Doctor Who because their kids love it, or nostalgia (the actress playing the new companion has been telling everyone that her grandmother is a super fan of the show which I think is adorable) but it’s clear now that the show has risen in status and you can see that from the actors who take roles.

Having said that, they had some amazing guest performances in Season One where no one knew if it was going to fail or not, so kudos to their casting director! I think it would be hard to argue against “Human Nature/Family of Blood” having the best ensemble cast of the season, maybe of the show so far. Some really hard stuff to get across, and many multiple parts. Even the kids were good!

Speaking of which, the boy from Love Actually – what’s his name? A ripper of a performance considering how young and slight he was, and that he needs to not only be all metaphysical and weedy and mysterious, but also has to act the soldier in that other flash forward scene. Chilling stuff!

TEHANI:
So overall, we think this was a pretty darn good double episode, it seems! But not, according to Hugo voters, the best viewing of the season – shall we move on?

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Watching New Who – in conversation with David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely

David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Seasons 1 to 6 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she’s rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the team, with a history in Doctor Who fandom that goes WAY back, and a passion for Doctor Who that inspires us all (plus a seven-year-old daughter who is finding her own Doctors for the first time). We’re going to work our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, as our blogging points. Just for fun! We have already talked about:

“Rose”, S01E01
“Dalek”, S01E06
“Father’s Day, S01E08
“The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances”, S01E09/10
“Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways”, S01E12/13
Season One Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani

“The Christmas Invasion,” 2005 Christmas special
“New Earth”, S02E01
“School Reunion,” S02E03
“The Girl in the Fireplace”, S02E04
“Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel”, S02E05/06
Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, S02E12/13

Season Two Report Cards: David, Tehani, Tansy
“The Runaway Bride”, 2006 Christmas Special
“Smith and Jones”, S03E01
The Shakespeare Code & Gridlock, S0302-03

Kate also appears on the Fantasy Cafe as part of their Women in SFF Month with a marvellous essay about learning that you don’t have to despise being a girl in order to play with the cool toys.

Kirstyn McDermott provides a counterpoint to the ‘women on urban fantasy book covers’ discussion by pointing out an example of getting it right. She is also interviewed by Dr Lisa & Dr Angela with Oops Your Psychosis is Showing. Later (Kirstyn is on FIRE this week!) she blogs about the consequences of being a girl, and the way we are socialised to view the world.

A lovely essay on the Mary Sue talks about having a four year old daughter who loves superheroes. I think you all know how much this resonates with me!

Also on the Mary Sue I learned about the woman who was laughed out of rooms by potential investors who didn’t see that her idea about consolidating babysitting services was a worthwhile business venture. Surprise, she’s now mega successful!

Small Beer Press answer the question of why print on demand isn’t right for them and their publishing model.

Cheryl Morgan talks about Women in Comics (Japanese Edition) and how the gender issues we have with the comics industry in the western world are funnily enough not the same at ALL in Japan.

Jo Walton looks at the issue of book series and how hard it is to review or consider them individually, and indeed the different ways in which continuing series work for readers, with particular reference to CJ Cherryh.

And finally, because it’s not a Friday Links post without Sarah Rees Brennan, check out her Thursday Sleuth post about the awesome Robin Scherbatsky from How I Met Your Mother, who defies gender roles at every turn and is definitely NOT going to be the mother. Hooray!

Which is of course an excuse to rewatch Robin’s embarrassing past…